|
The Adaptation Process of Cuban and Haitian Refugees
This data archive contains two sets of
longitudinal data collected for a comparative
study of the adaptation of Cuban and Haitian
refugees living in the area of Miami and Fort
Lauderdale, Florida. This comparative study
of refugees was conducted by the Johns Hopkins
University's Alejandro Portes (now at Princeton
University), in
collaboration with faculty and researchers at
the Miami-Dade Community College and Florida
International University.
Sample Selection and Interview Schedule
The researchers followed two large samples of
recently arrived refugees living in southern
Florida.
The first sample includes 514 Cuban refugees
who arrived as part of the Mariel boat lift of
1980. The men and women of the Cuban sample
were interviewed in 1983 and re-interviewed
between 1985 and 1986. The Cuban sample was
selected using a stratified multi-stage
sampling method based on the political
divisions of the Miami SMSA.
The second sample includes 500 Haitian
refugees who arrived in southern Florida
between 1980 and 1982. All of the people in
this sample were interviewed shortly after
their arrival and re-interviewed two years
later. 300 cases in the sample were selected
using a stratified multi-stage sampling method
in Miami's Little Haiti, a neighborhood with a
high concentration of Haitians. 200
households were selected from the Haitian
rural population that resides near the sugar
mills of southern Florida in which Haitians
work as cane cutters.
The Questionnaire and Data Collection
The same questionnaire was administered to
Cuban and Haitian refugees. The questionnaire
administered at the time of the refugee's
arrival combined items on various aspects of
adaptation with questions on the respondent's
background prior to arrival, their reasons for
coming, details of their journey to the United
States, and tracing information necessary to
conduct the second interview.
The second interview focused exclusively on
three main aspects comprising the immigrant
(refugee) adaptation process these include:
(1) structural adaptation or educational,
occupational and economic mobility in the host
society; (2) cultural adaptation
conceptualized as changes in self-perception,
attitudes, language use and other normative
patterns; and social adaptation, or shifts in
the individual's network of primary and
secondary relationships within the ethnic
circle.
Many of the questions in the second
questionnaire have items in common with those
employed in the Cuban-Mexican adaptation study
which is also available in the Latin American
Data Archive of the Johns Hopkins University.
The similarities in the two data sets makes
possible further comparative research.
Cuba-Haiti Archive File Contents
For each of the samples there are three files:
One is an SPSS system file containing all the data
(e.g. haiti.sav). These SPSS system files are in
binary format and must be retrieved as such. They
can be analyzed directly using the SPSS statistical
analysis program. There is also a corresponding
ascii text file containing all the data for each sample.
These files have an .lst suffix (e.g. haiti.lst). These
are not binary files. They must be read in to your
statistical program with an appropriate format statement.
Each sample also has a codebook containing information about
variables, formats and values. These files are in ascii (text)
format.
Publications
Several publications were produced based on
this longitudinal study of Cuban and Haitian
refugees. Some of the publications are listed
below.
Portes, Alejandro and Alex Stepick. 1994.
City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Portes, Alejandro. 1987 "The Social Origins
of the Cuban Enclave Economy of Miami."
Sociological Perspectives 30(October):340-372.
Portes, Alejandro and Juan M. Clark. 1987.
"Mariel Refugees: Six Years After." Migration
World 15(Fall):14-18.
Portes, Alejandro and Alex Stepick. 1986.
"Flight into Despair: A Profile of Recent
Haitian Refugees in South Florida."
International Migration Review 20(Summer):329-
350.
Portes, Alejandro, Alex Stepick and Cynthia
Truelove. 1986. "Three Years Later: The
Adaptation Process of 1980 (Mariel) Cuban and
Haitian Refugees in South Florida."
Population Research and Policy Review
5(Summer):329-350.
Portes, Alejandro and Alex Stepick. 1985.
"Unwelcome Immigrants: The Labor Market
Experience of 1980 Cuban and Haitian Refugees
in South Florida." American Sociological
Review 50(August):493-514.
Portes, Alejandro, Juan M. Clark and Robert D.
Manning. 1985. "After Mariel: A Survey of the
Resettlement Experiences of 1980 Cuban
Refugees in Miami." Cuban Studies
15(Summer):37-59. | 
